1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to communication systems; and, more particularly, to channel characterization of communication pathways within such communication systems.
2. Description of Related Art
Data communication systems have been under continual development for many years. The primary goal within such communication systems is to transmit information successfully between devices. Unfortunately, many things can deleteriously affect signals transmitted within such systems resulting in degradation of or even complete failure of communication. Examples of adverse effects include interference and noise that may be caused by various sources including other communications, low-quality links, degraded or corrupted interfaces and connectors, etc.
Some communication systems use forward error correction (FEC) coding and/or error correction code (ECC) coding to increase the reliability and the amount of information that may be transmitted between devices. When a signal incurs one or more errors during transmission, a receiver device can employ the FEC or ECC coding to try to correct those one or more errors.
A continual and primary directive in this area of development has been to try continually to lower the signal to noise ratio (SNR) required to achieve a given bit error ratio (BER) or symbol error ratio (SER) within a communication system. The Shannon limit is the theoretical bound for channel capacity for a given modulation and code rate. The ideal goal has been to try to reach Shannon's channel capacity limit in a communication channel. Shannon's limit may be viewed as being the data rate per unit of bandwidth (i.e., spectral efficiency) to be used in a communication channel, having a particular SNR, where transmission through the communication channel with arbitrarily low BER or SER is achievable.
Within such communication systems, it can be desirable to characterize a communication pathway between a first device and the second device. Examples of characterization of a communication pathway may be related to noise, interference, signal to noise ratio (SNR), signal to interference noise ratio (SINR), etc. among other types of characterization. Prior art systems do not provide an adequate means by which a synchronized event can be coordinated between a first and second device for use in characterizing the communication pathway between the devices. There continues to be a need for improved means by which communication pathways may be characterized within communication systems.